Clouds
by Monday1113
Summary: Even though he's a hero, he's still a human. CONTAINS CHARACTER DEATH. A nice look into Kai's perspective as he watches a close friend slowly lose a fight for his life.


**Let us never let Monday Fanfiction late at night again.**

**Not sure if I'm going to write the rest of the characters POV's for this. It was pretty draining emotionally for me.**

**Monday1113 owns nothing.**

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Clouds

Chapter One: Kai

It only took a little over half a year from the day I carried him to the hospital, to the day he held onto my wrist, telling me he was scared. Moonlight mixed with the dim lights in the hallway as his bony fingers clutched onto me with all they had, before their grip slackened.

It had started out by him complaining of aches and pains in his leg every morning, like he had slept on his leg the wrong way, and paid for it everyday, like he didn't learn from the mistake the day before.

Then it started affecting his performance during training. We each took note of it, and used it against him when we were sparring. His left leg was always easier to hit to knock him to the ground. It wasn't as strong as his right. It never had been. After his knee made a loud pop one day, he started wrapping it in ace bandages everyday, trying to make sure it didn't pop out-of-place or something.

Zane noticed the swelling around his knee first, as well as the limp. When Lloyd complained of the pain, he told him he should go to the doctor. Lloyd shook it off, saying it was probably just from training so much. He said it'd pass. To prove that he could survive with the pain, he hopped around on one foot for the rest of the day.

After a while, he stopped complaining out loud.

It didn't mean that he didn't still hurt.

We had been training, and I had fallen, pushing myself up off the ground, my legs swept his out from under him, and he had hit the roof. Hard.

A loud crack had echoed when he did, and his hand flew to his mouth, and he bit down on his finger. Tears were beginning to slip down his face.

When I asked him what was wrong, he told me he knew something was broken, that he knew he couldn't get up. That it hurt.

Picking him up, I pretty much carried him the entire way to the hospital, trying not to cause him any more pain than necessary. I called his parents, and they got there quickly. When I had explained that Lloyd and I had been training, and all I had done was sweep his feet out from under him, the doctor got worried, telling a nurse to assemble a bunch of tests for Lloyd. He let Garmadon and Misako away, wanting to talk to them, and I was left in the waiting room, completely alone.

It felt like forever before a nurse said I could see Lloyd, since I wasn't family. He was half-laying down on a gurney, a cast wrapped around most of his left leg. "Broken femur." He said, voice small and quiet. I noticed the bandage in the crook of his elbow. "They took blood."

"Why?" He shrugged. "They didn't tell you why?" In the pit of my stomach, I felt a stone settling.

"No," His voice was still small, like he was scared of something. "They kept mentioning things, tests they wanted done, like I'm not even here. He yawned, clearly tired.

I swallowed. "What kind of tests?"

"Another x-ray, something they called tomography, MRI, things like that." His eyes were fearful, and I reached forward, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "What do those even mean? Isn't it obvious that my leg's broken? What's the-"

"Lloyd, they think something's wrong. When I told them how you broke your leg, they said they wanted to take some tests on you." I said, looking into his eyes. I opened my mouth, trying to find words to comfort him, but it didn't work like that. I sat there like a fish with my mouth open. Opening and closing it. He laughed, and I felt a little better.

The rocks were beginning to pile up in my stomach though.

A nurse came into the room, and undid the breaks on the gurney Lloyd had been left on. "Let's go get this checked out." She said, beginning to roll him away. Lloyd looked at me, as though I could make it better.

I gave him the fish face as they took him away.

Making my way back into the waiting room. The others were there this time, but they hadn't noticed me yet.

We spent hours in the waiting room, Garmadon and Misako silently sitting away from us, frequently talking with the doctors in hushed tones.

They didn't have to tell us something was wrong. Their body language said it. They way Misako kept her hand by her mouth, and how she frequently looked at the hallway, then down at the floor. The way Garmadon actually left, before coming back half an hour later, breathing heavily, as if he had been running. We knew.

It was at some time after midnight the doctors came out to the waiting room again, and when they talked to the two of them, I felt another stone sink into my stomach.

They told us afterwards what the doctors believed was going on.

Stage three metastatic osteosarcoma. That was their presumed diagnosis.

They told us that Lloyd was asleep, and that hopefully, the results would come back, and it would be better than they had thought it was, that it just looked worse than it was.

That night, when we all were back at the apartment, except for Lloyd who was still at the hospital, I looked up reasons why this could have happened to Lloyd, like there was something I could have done to prevent it.

'_...This may be why some normal situations (such as the teenage growth spurt) that cause rapid bone growth increase the risk of osteosarcoma.' _I felt my eyes widen when I read over that.

Lloyd went from being shortest kid in his age group to being a teenage, just a few inches shorter than the rest of us in a matter of seconds. If that wasn't rapid bone growth, I didn't know what was. Closing the laptop, I forced myself to go to sleep. My dreams played with my mind, showing me the scene in the fire temple over and over, each time, I was failing to save Lloyd.

* * *

A few days passed, and our worst fears were true.

Lloyd was officially diagnosed with stage three metastatic osteosarcoma. At the stage he was at, his chance of survival was 30%. If we had dragged him by his ear here when he first complained, it might have been higher.

Then they might have actually been able to do something with it.

They wanted to start treatment very quickly, even though there was so little they could do other than chemotherapy. In most cases, they could at least try removing the cancer, but not with Lloyd. It was eating away at his remodeling left femur, and in his left hip.

He was antsy because not only was he facing the end of his life, but because they had insisted on keeping him in bed. We spent as much time as we could in the hospital with him.

When he started chemo, he was miserable. They had put him under anesthesia so they could put a catheter in his chest, instead of having to mess around with jabbing his arm with needles all the time.

What was worse was the side effects.

As a treat, the others and I had brought him some of his favorite candy, hoping it would cheer him up. Seeing him wrinkle his nose up, Zane quickly put it away, telling us that because of his treatment, Lloyd was probably nauseous.

As if to prove that point, Lloyd promptly got sick, puking into a plastic bucket that had been left in his reach, just for that purpose.

* * *

That candy was never eaten. It just sat by his bedside at home.

He ate a lot less the more his treatment went on. Bouncing between home and the hospital, Lloyd didn't get to do much. He was weaker, and got tired super easy. Some days, when he was at home, he would just curl up as much as he could on his bed, wrapped around a hot water bottle, clutching onto it like it was his lifeline.

Once his cast came off, they started doing small surgeries on his lungs, removing the small tumors in his lungs.

We made sure to spend as much time as possible with him. We trained less than we used to, waking up earlier so we could spend more time with Lloyd later in the day.

It was enough for Lloyd, who wore a bright green knit cap almost all the time once his hair started coming out from chemo. He liked it though, since he got cold a lot easier.

* * *

Months passed, and he went up and down, having good and bad days. It was a vicious cycle, and Lloyd faced it smiling most of the time.

This was not one of those smiling times.

With the pain in his leg, he insisted on hopping up the stairs to the roof, to see the Ultra-Dragon. I helped him, wrapping one arm around his waist, the other keeping his arm draped over my neck.

Like Lloyd, the dragon was suffering. It could tell that its owner wasn't good. It wasn't in such good shape either. Each head nuzzled Lloyd, showing him that they cared. That they would miss him.

It became routine that once a week, if Lloyd was up to it, we'd each take turns taking him to see the dragon.

* * *

I was half asleep, resting my head on my arms when he grabbed my wrist. His fingers were icy cold, and I could feel each bone. With a shaky grip, he shook my arm, and I sat up quickly, looking at Lloyd in the darkness, light from the moon outside the window and the dimmed hall light cast strange shadows over Lloyd. He seemed to be gasping and struggling for breath.

"K-Kai..." He breathed, swallowing hard. "H-hurts. A lot."

Over the past few months, he had battled through more pain than the rest of us could stand. He never admitted that anything hurt. His pain tolerance was too high for that.

I stood, my stomach clenching hard enough that I felt sick. "No!" He shouted, the sound coming out strangled and mangled from the way the disease had eaten at his lungs, making breathing a challenge. Lloyd coughed loudly, spasms ripping through his body. The grip on my wrist got stronger, stronger than it had been in a while. "Don't leave." He pleaded. "Please. I don't want to be alone." Tears were running down his face, and I sat back down, pressing the button that would alert the nurses that Lloyd wasn't okay.

"You're not alone kiddo." I said, blinking so I wouldn't cry. I lightly held onto the hand that wasn't wrapped around my wrist. "I'm not gonna leave you. Not until the end."

It seemed like forever before the nurse got to Lloyd, who quickly told her he hurt all over, that he knew it was over. The way his body was shaking made me want to think otherwise. That he was shaking too much to be dying, he was going to pull through this tough part, and still be here when the sun rose.

The nurse left, dialing to call his parents. I looked Lloyd in the eye, and made fish faces at him, trying to get a reaction.

The corners of his mouth turned up just a little, and his grip tightened as more pain ran through him like lava. "Not gonna make it...are they?" He asked. I didn't have to ask him to clarify. He meant his family. The rest of us. "Not enough time..." He looked at the window. "Moon's pretty."

I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut as tears threatened to spill again. "Yeah," I replied, voice strained. "It is."

"Tell them I love them?" He asked, eyes slowly becoming distant, looking not at me, but slightly through me, like he was looking at my soul. There was a ragged wheezing sound in the room, and it took me a minute to realize it was Lloyd's breathing.

So much had changed about the green ninja over the past few months. His blonde hair was gone from frequent, life extending treatments that failed in the end. He was thinner, and had lost a lot of muscle. Enough of his bones were visible for the doctors to have to give him intravenous feedings, since normal food upset his stomach too much. His skin was paler, despite how much time he insisted on spending in the sun, basking in its warm glow like he was a snake.

I nodded. "I will, you can tell them too, just-" I felt the first tear run down my face. "Just stay with me, please!" For the first time in a long time, I wanted something so badly, that I was willing to do anything. I wanted Lloyd to live more than I had wanted to be the green ninja. I wanted him to live more than I wanted Jay to finally talk less, or for Cole to learn how to cook edible food.

I wanted him to have a life.

"Kai..." His voice was quiet, just like the day he had broken his femur. I could feel his grip loosening, before falling away, his body no longer having the energy it needed to hold onto me. I grabbed his hand, holding it tightly, as if by holding onto him, I could keep him alive. "You guys still..." He took another ragged, shallow breath. "Still owe me a tree house..." He said, eyelids fluttering shut, shielding his foggy, green-blue eyes from the world.

The room was silent.

The rough sound of Lloyd struggling to breathe no longer filled the room.

Holding his hand, I felt his pulse slowing, before stopping altogether.

He was gone.

* * *

"You can't blame yourself." The counselor they had set me up with said. I shot her a glare that said plain and clearly that I could, and I would. "You were there for him though. He was scared, and you comforted him."

I sat in her office, still in the same clothes I wore yesterday. The others had gotten to the hospital quickly, just as they were pulling the sheet over his head. I didn't see how the others reacted, a nurse was dragging me away, telling me I needed to talk to a grief counselor, since I was the only one who had been there.

There was a hollow part of me, the part of my heart I associated with being a ninja, with being a protector. It was hollow, and empty.

I got up, walking back down the hall towards the room where I knew the others were. I didn't even try to hide my tears anymore. They fell down my face freely.

Misako embraced me in a hug, I could feel her tears soaking into my shirt. All I could do was hug her back. My mind and mouth weren't working to create comforting words anymore.

_'Lloyd was part of that 70% group that doesn't live...' _

* * *

Time seemed to skip weirdly.

I could hardly tell you what day of the week it was. All I knew was that today was Lloyd's funeral.

Seeing the others pushing their breakfasts around their plates, I cleared my throat. "We have something we have to do for him."

Jay looked up, silently asking.

"We have to build him a tree house. We owe him one."

* * *

In the Ninjago City Cemetary, under a willow by the lake, there's a grave marker. There's a wreath of multi-colored flowers, with green and gold ribbons holding it together laid over it. Anyone who passed by can tell it's a relatively new grave.

On the stone it reads like this:

_Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon_

_Heroes like you are once in a lifetime._

_People forget though, _

_Heroes like you are sometimes human._

_2003-2014_

"Rest in peace Lloyd," I said, leaning against the tree. "Just letting you know, we have plans for that tree house."

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**This is why you guys shouldn't let me fanfiction at 11 at night after re-reading TFIOS. You get this. **

**I hope no one else is drowning in as many feels as I am because I broke down crying several times while writing this.**

**BTW, if you're wondering about the title being "irrelevant" considering I never once mention clouds, I chose the title because of a song I heard about while doing research for this. It's titled Clouds, by Zach ****Sobiech, who actually died from Osteosarcoma back in May.**

**Reviews?**


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